Reflection: 6714, Reaching and Engaging All Learners Through Technology

Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson and many other instructors within the last eight weeks have helped further develop within me insight and understanding in how to best meet the individualistic needs of my students.  Through various articles, videos, and reading within the course text, I have further developed a deeper understanding of how students learn in various ways, “some by hearing, others, by doing, some alone, others in the company of peers, some in a rapid-fire fashion, others reflectively (Tomlinson, 2001).  This learning brings relevance to my professional approaches as a teachers as I refine my teaching approaches and instructional strategies. 

In reflecting back over what I have learned in the last eight weeks, I have encountered new learning and developed further understanding of prior learning.  The concepts of Universal Design for Learning were completely new to me, and brought a world of understanding of how to meet a vast array of diverse needs within a wide variety of students I teach and will teach.  While I had heard of Differentiated Instruction, I had not received enough effective training in how to successfully implement these strategies.  Through the CASE website and many online resources and strategies provided through my group assignments, I feel equipped with a toolbox of invaluable resources helping me reach the goal of accommodating each individual student need within my classroom. 

Taking into consideration the many concepts I have learned in class, one of the main issues I would  like to address within my classroom is learning to get into the minds of my students.  Technology makes this venture easy and accessible for effective implementing this into my learning environment for my classroom.  Technology plays a vital and intrigual part of my implementation of UDL and DI.  Tools such as online surveys and student inventories will allow me to determine student interests, likes, dislikes, and other invaluable information necessary for understanding the various needs of my students.  This tool will provide many diverse ways for students to have freedom in sharing their their input and ideas for each curriculum unit.  Another excellent technology resource I found for ideas of implementing UDL and differentiating various subjects is K8 Access Center.  Valuable information such as differentiating ideas for each subject, and teaching and learning straties are provided, allowing teacher to chose from a pleathera of strategies and suggestions for meeting the diverse needs of all students.

Through this class, I have been challenged to develop my professional understanding about UDL and DI.  Through my initial learning, I have been encouraged to not only learn about these concepts, but also continually evaluate how I can implement these concepts into the the daily strategies and procedures of my classroom.  I am excited to take these next steps to better serve and meet the diverse needs of all my students.  

An immediate adjustments to my instructional practice regarding the use of technology integration as a result of my learning from this course will come in the form of evaluating my curriculum units about how I can initially begin implementing small steps of UDL and DI.  Many times it is frustrating through trying to enact to much to quickly, but I am determined these approaches hold to much value for instructing my students that I want to build slowly and gradually to ensure the success of my plan.   

In viewing the class and group resources on differentiating instruction, I have been struck by how many helpful sites and quickly available information is to support me in this new journey.  A vast amount of assistance is available, and I am encouraged that I don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.”  I am truly excited about my develeopmental learning form this course!  

Differentiating Instruction for Learning Multiplication

Technology Instructional Resources:

1.   Squidoo.com: a first through eight grade math website providing highly interactive, skill level adaptive, bright and colorful websites that brings math learning alive meting the diverse needs of each learner in the classroom.

2.   Thinking blocks: Model Your Math Problems: This week as I prepared my lesson on multiplication, I found this excellent multiplication site for student third grade and above.  It uses audio and visual approach to learning multiplication supported by problem solving steps, ideas from a math tutor and the ability to build models for solving a problem.  This will be an excellent resource for supporting the diverse learners in my classroom. 

3.   Multiplication.com: this website is appropriate for all students in elementary school or middle school students needing math foundational skills, provides diverse activities for helping teach multiplication skills. As I seek to provide various approaches in teaching my students multiplication, this great variety of activities will allow students choices meeting their learning style needs.  Classroom games

4.   GlobalClassroom.org: this site provides math and reading resources for students in elementary school.  In developing resources for my math lesson in multiplication, I found teaching approaches for implementing technology into the process of learning multiplication. These tools provided a interactive game or challenge while building valuable multiplication skills.  Multiplication Hidden Pictures.  

Technology Resources for Differentiated Instruction

These resources will equip any teacher in the endeavor of implementing differentiated instruction into the classroom through the medium of technology.

1.     Leveraging Technology to Differentiate Instruction: http://www.slideshare.net/itsco/leveraging-technology-to-differentiate-instruction

I loved slides 17-23 in this slide presentation which discuss learning contracts and choice boards can become an major tool for teachers desiring to differentiate classroom instruction.  This week’s resources especially stressed personal motivation and multiple choices in learning and these two options fit beautifully with these.  I could implement learning contracts at the beginning of each unit to allow students to set their own expectation level for learning.  The choice boards would then be used through the various topics within the unit to allow diversity in what the student chooses to learn about.  Both of the tools provide utmost freedom in choice of instructional learning!

2.     Nine categories of instructional strategies most likely to help students learn: http://www.iste.org/images/excerpts/DIFFK5-excerpt.pdf

This excellent resource provides invaluable information on how differentiated instruction through the use of technology become an excellent resource for any teacher.  I especially enjoyed reading pgs. 18-19 where effective instructional strategies were given, how these strategies would be applied in a differentiated classroom, and the type of technology that could be used to support the strategies. 

This tools would be a vital part of my planning of instruction each week.  I would be able to choose the strategies that best reflect the curricular studies for the week, then provide various technology based activities to support my chosen instructional strategies.  In considering this week’s resources, teachers who strive to implement DI must provide multiple approaches for meeting the various learners’ needs.  This resources takes into consideration these needs and provides teachers a toolbox of wonderful resources.

3.     Differentiation Wins Big in South Carolina: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-differentiated-instruction-ten-key-lessons

This multi-level story provide a awesome visual glimpse into a school located here in my state who is doing a SUPERB job in differentiating instruction through technology.  The article provided ten tips for personalized learning using technology and what it looked like at their school. It also gave tips of how to make the most of digital tools in the classroom such as put the tools in the kids hands and give the kids a real audience. 

Also, another facet of the story I leaned a great deal from that reflected so many of this week’s resources  was a section called “What Works in Differentiation Instruction in Elementary Schools.”  Strategies for getting started focused on what a teacher could do in five minutes, five days, and 5 weeks, 5 months,  and 5 years to begin developing a differentiated classroom. 

4.     Technology Support for Differentiated Instruction: http://faculty.otterbein.edu/ckilbane/stateconf/

This resource provided not only strategies and tools for differentiating instructions, but many of the tools were also focused in achieving Universal Design for Learning objectives.  Excellent technology tools were provided for many areas , but these were the tools that I could quickly and easily implement in my classroom in small groups or individual projects: adjusting content material for reading levels, translating text, provide variety in media formats, assistive technologies, presentation and assessment tools, pre-assessment tools and many more. 

5.     Differentiated Instruction and Technology: http://8thfloorwiki.wikispaces.com/Differentiated+Instruction+and+Technology

This wiki discusses technology resources that address student needs and the various learning styles they each have.  Strategies are provided to meet visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners; may alternative projects are listed.  I would use this resource to not only find out how ipads, digital cameras, videos, and podcasting provide learning choices for students, but also many resources in the form of videos and podcasts support teachers in understanding the tools at their fingertips for their class.  In listening to this week’s resources I heard a lot about putting technology tools into the students hands, but obtaining hardware can be difficult; this site provided information on grants teachers could participate in to help solve the problem of providing the necessary technology tools.